Keepin it Simple on the 4th

Had the fam over for our annual 4th of July party, and i had no clue what to make. I had a hellish week dealing with laptop problems, so I was just going to make a bunch of apps, but i had no time to even put together a good menu.

My mom said, "You should make ribs, it'll be easy"! Easy? ribs? for the fam? And flashbacks of the last REAL meal i cooked my fam popped into my head... it was abuelo's birthday dinner, back in '04, and i served chicken piccata...raw. Since then, all of my parties for the fam have consisted of catered food, or pot luck or a ton of apps. i have never attempted to cook another meal for the whole fam.

And from the second mom said it, i was searching for a great rib recipe, this was not only a challenge, it was a chance for redemption.

I found this scandalous recipe Should Be Illegal Oven BBQ Ribs , hot and sweet, yup that's exactly what i'm looking for.

I mixed all the ingredients in a bowl, then poured the marinade into zip lock bags and marinated 14lbs of ribs overnight. 14lbs of ribs is ALOT of ribs, people! lol.

Since i never did this before, i had no idea you could stack the slabs of ribs on top of each other to cook, so we had all the pans out: the turkey roaster, a dark coated non-stick rectangular pan and a shallow pan. Of course half way through cooking, mom called to check in and said you can stack the ribs while cooking (thanks mom!).

We cooked them low and slow at 325 for 3.5 hours. My hubby was shocked to see how different each pan cooked the ribs, the dark coated non-stick pan worked the best for that lip smackin' barbecue look.


Served it up with double potato mash (totally forgot to take a photo), which i adapted this time using heavy cream, butter and salt.

My friend Lisa offered up her recipe for a really great corn salad.

Lisa's Summer Corn Salad
2 cans of white corn, rinsed well
2-3 ripe avocados cut into smallish cubes
1/2 red onion diced
tons of cilantro (but you can go easy on it)
juice of a lime
little olive oil
sea salt sprinkled on just before serving

And ended the meal with a super simple strawberry shortcake! ...oh yeah, i also made a luscious snicker's pie, dammit, i forgot to take a photo of that too.

Everyone sat down and RAVED about everything on their plate (AWE YEAH!). The ribs were tender and flavorful, the double mash was new to everyone and took them all by surprise and the corn salad was a cool twist on the standard corn on the cob.

All in all, a very successful 4th of July feast. I am redeemed. :)